Day 16 (February 17, 2011)
Itinerary: Early morning ferry from Santa Cruz de La Palma to Los Cristianos on Tenerife, Check into H10 Hotel, spend the day at Siam Park (a water park), dinner on the beach
Today felt more like 1.5 days. The ferry was about an hour away and we needed to be there 30 minutes early. So that meant waking up at 3:30, leaving at 4:15, and arriving at 5:15 for our 5:45am ferry ride back to Tenerife. We made it just fine. We saw about 5 cars before we hit Santa Cruz on our early morning mountain drive which meant I could use my brights the whole way. Dropping off the rental car was super easy as there was a key drop next to the ferry ticket office. The most notable part of this trip was the squeaky metal sounds the ferry was admitting when we arrived. It sounded a little like a loud and distressed whale. We finally figured out that the sound came from the metal platform from ferry to shore that the cars would drive over to enter. But we had fun standing around saying: “OoOOoooOOooo, Eerrrrrrr, Ahhhrrrrhhhhooooo.”
Next thing we knew, we were at the Los Crisitianos harbor. We slept the whole way here and wow there were tons of people here. We were coming from a small, non-tourist island to a larger very touristy part of Tenerife. It was like a country boy entering the big city for the first time. All the shop owners along the shoreline were brushing down their entries and getting ready for the day. The breakfast places were opening their awnings and the early morning joggers were out for a run on our peaceful walk to the hotel.
We are staying in the H10 Hotel of Los Cristianos, an easy walk from the port, for 2 nights. Of course we arrived when all the guests were both checking out and trying to get organized for their tours for the day. The desk was hopping and when we finally were able to talk to someone we found out that somehow our booking had been made for 2/19 instead of 2/17. I really don’t know what happened, but they were able to accommodate us with an ocean view room anyway. The room wouldn’t be ready for a few hours still, so we dumped the luggage in the storage room at the hotel and headed off for Siam Park.
Back when we were at Loro Parque, el “must” de Canarias, we pre-purchased tickets to Siam Park, the happening water park on Tenerife. Now we could hop the free bus to the park. The weather was pretty much perfect for a water park day. It was warm and sunny out. The park let us rent both towels and lockers and we were all set.
The park personnel had to give instructions to everyone in multiple languages. For the most part they just used English and everyone seemed to understand. All the rides were thrilling. One of the more unique set ups was a tube ride that dropped us into what can only be described as a large toilet bowl that we went around and around before we were flushed out. We found out that all the cheesy pictures in the brochures were actual photos. The main photo was a huge dragon on top of a large funnel ride and indeed the dragon was there.
The tallest ride of the park was the most intense ride. First you had to climb a few hundred steps to get to the top. At the top, the lifeguard held up the instruction sign in 3 languages and went over the rules to cross your legs, cross your arms, and keep you head back. They were all about keeping your head back. They would not let you go down until your head was back and the poor boy in front of us kept lifting up his head during prep. The lifeguard kept pushing his head back down. He made sure our chins were lifted and our arms were crossed more than usual and then he pushed us down the nearly vertical drop. Whooooshhh! All of a sudden I was at the bottom deep in a pool of water and all I could think was, “is the ride over and am I allowed to move yet?” Haha. I couldn’t open my eyes at all, so I missed the part where we were shot through a water tube inside a shark pond. The brochures had the photos of people riding tubes through the shark pond, and I didn’t think it really existed, but it did.
We were surprised to find that our lunch options were not limited to hamburgers and hot dogs. In fact, there was quite a lunch counter with decent food. After lunch, we grabbed some lounge chairs and took our afternoon siesta on the shore of the wave pool. The sun started disappearing behind the clouds at this point, coming down from the mountains, but we still managed to get our February tan on.
We woke with enough time for a couple more hours of thrilling fun before it was time to change and head back to the hotel. We would both recommend Siam Park to someone visiting the area.
Our room was ready when we got back to the hotel, so we were able to decompress before dinner. The porch outside our room was very large, maybe 10′ x10′. We had lounge chairs, a table, regular chairs, and even an umbrella, all with a view of the ocean.
We are located at the start of the shoreline walk around two bays that we took to a dinner spot. We decided to try out the fish and seafood paella which was about as we expected. We got shrimp, clams, and citrus fruit surrounding a plate of rice-seafood mix similar to a jambalaya. All the shrimp I’ve ordered around here come full with heads and tails.
After dinner we crashed back in the hotel room and slept for about 10 hours. Tomorrow we’ll see about some whale watching cruises.
For the sake of getting the posts out quickly, no photos today.